EXPERIENCING GOD THROUGH WORSHIP

 

ISAIAH 6:1-8

 

 

          This morning I want to create an awareness here at the River of Life that worship is an end in itself. I want us to have this conviction that worship should never be pursued as a means to achieve something other than worship. Worship is never a step on our way up to any other experience. It’s not a door which we pass to get anywhere. It’s the end point, the goal. Isaiah 6:1-8 gives us a powerful picture of worship: it begins with a vision of God, moves to repentance, leads to transformation, and sends us into service. 

          This morning I came to say, worship is the believer’s response to God’s greatness, holiness, and love. It’s more than songs or rituals; it’s a lifestyle of honor and reverence to God. True worship brings us into alignment with God’s will, releases His power, and invites His presence into our lives and situations. We must not forget why we come to church. It’s about the worship of God! It’s about having our spiritual tank filled so we can make it through the week! It’s about having the appropriate amount of spiritual air in our tires of faith and hoping we don’t have a flat tire as we pursue our faith. Worship has always revolved around the power and presence of God; never should worship be wrapped around any human personality. And perhaps our shortfalls may well be we allow personalities, traditions, customs, days, and denominational labels to have more authority over us and our worship, rather than worship having authority over them.

          The tendency is for us to equate worship with music, or with what we do on Sunday mornings. But if the only time you worship is on Sunday mornings, you really aren't experiencing God. Worship is a lifestyle, and has little, if anything, to do with music.

          There is serious concern in this day and hour as far as the understanding and the misunderstanding of what authentic worship really means and what it’s really all about. In this 21st century of praise and worship music; in this day of cutting-edge culture—we have so intertwined the culture of society and brought into the church that which society is pleased with and applauded, that as a consequence we have now become twisted and misinformed about what worship is. But I want you to know that God wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Many churches have turned worship service into a performance. In other words, the congregation is the audience and the preacher, and music director are the performers. But I stopped by to say that’s not the way God intended worship to be. Know that God is the real audience and we are all the performers. It is God who should be blessed from our worship. He longs to deliver His people from religious bondage that comes from legalism, traditionalism, denominationalism, and faddism. The Lord longs for His church to investigate His Word so He can birth forth worship out of our bellies.

          Dr. Myles Munroe was Senior Pastor of Bahamas Faith Ministries International and author of The Purpose and Power of Praise and Worship. He said, “The only way we can stay connected is to practice His presence on a daily basis.” He further asks the question, “How do I practice the presence of God?” The answer to this very important and pivotal question he suggests is through praise and worship. He goes on to say; “Praise and worship are God’s solution to get us back into His presence. We must be clear, however, that praise and worship don’t put us back into God’s presence; they bring God’s presence to us … Praise is what attracts God’s presence to us.” In other words, “Praise is God’s prescription for changing your environment.” That’s why I stopped by to remind us why David said, “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually to be in my mouth.”

          The Lord would have me to remind us that worship really has nothing to do with the music of a choir. Worship has nothing to do with the synchronizing of the beat, the rhythm; how fast or slow a song is. Worship isn’t branded only for a certain kind of people. In fact, if we’re honest, worship really has nothing to do with our gathering in a building because I want you to know that properly understood and defined—worship is not an event; worship is an encounter! Worship is not a human invention; worship is not entertainment, rather it is a divine offering. Worship is that which values God above everyone and everything! Worship sets the stage for the extraordinary in your life.

          You don’t come to worship; you do worship. You come to a building—but being in a building doesn’t make worship; worship makes the building a sanctuary. Because what makes worship is not the elaborate features; what makes worship is not an organ which fills a room with a sense of churchiness; what makes worship is not that we have carpet or the fact that we have a sound system. But what makes worship is when you and I set the atmosphere of our spirits properly to allow God to manifest His presence in such a way that His glory fills the place and things begin to happen. When we approach worship with a hunger … an appetite to meet God, we will always be fulfilled and satisfied. When we come to worship, filled up with our own self-sufficiency or full of preoccupied thoughts, we can’t experience meaningful worship. Good worship begins with a hunger for God!

          I submit to you this morning that I’m at the point where I don’t want to come to church to just have church. I’m tired of having church! I’m at a point now where I want to see the glory of God every time I enter His presence. I’m tired of just coming to have church just to have church. I’m at a point now where every time I get together with the Saints, I want to see the manifested glory and the out pouring of the Holy Ghost. I’m talking about folks getting set free/delivered, and laying hands and the sick recovering.

          The reason why so many people run from church to church; and they join one church this month and two months later they join another church; it’s because they’re looking for a church just to make them feel good.  They come looking for a wiggle and a jerk—but when you are mature you come to a point of understanding every church that’s got a beat ain’t trying to see the glory! Every church that’s got numbers ain’t trying to see the glory! In fact, the Bible declares that wherever two or three are … What I’m saying is that I don’t need anybody just to see the glory; I can see the glory all by myself.

That’s what happens here with Isaiah! He wasn’t in a corporate worship service; he wasn’t hanging out with the praise team; nobody was singing for him—but Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died (when I was all by myself)—but because I had set my own atmosphere in the year King Uzziah died—I don’t know what everybody else saw, but I saw the Lord. And Bible declares that when the glory came the posts started shaking. I want you to know this morning that when the glory comes in, things get shaken.

          I’m saying that God tries to shake things up with His glory. But, our problem is that we try to hold onto too many shaky things! Know that every shaking in your life is not from the devil. God will come through your temple with His glory in order to shake some things that need to be shaken. In other words, He’ll shake some people away from you in an attempt to remind you that the only One that is solid and unshakable is Him. He’ll shake some things away from you in an attempt to remind you that the only thing that is unshakable is Him. And I don’t know about you this morning, but I need the glory of God in my life; I need an encounter from God in my life so that the revelation of God can be released and so that I can be changed—because our text this morning is saying that when you genuinely and authentically encounter the glory SOMETHING happens!

          There are three things that happened when the glory came in. Number one, God doesn’t need a favorable circumstance to have a conversation. One of the things that we need to be delivered from is having what has been called, a ‘situation-driven’ relationship with God. If the truth be told, we have to admit that our faith and our relationship with God are more ‘situation-driven’ than it is ‘faith-based.’ In other words, for most folks, we allow what we think and what we do about life and even think about God—to be driven, dictated, and determined by whatever we’re going through at the time.

There are times when folk are in church but they really aren’t there because their mind is on something that they’re going through to the extent that they can’t even sense the moving of the Spirit. What I’m trying to say is that they have empowered something that’s going on in their life to the extent that their vision is blurry and they can’t see God.

          However, Isaiah says, ‘In the year King Uzziah died, I also saw the Lord.’ Uzziah had been a godly king. He had brought Judah to prosperity; he had been a king after God’s own heart. He brought Judah to a golden age spiritually. But he died. And Isaiah says—‘in the same year when life got rough—I heard God talk and I saw God’s glory.’

          Now when the king died nothing was going the way we wanted it to go—but in the same year when my life was rough; when things didn’t go like I wanted them to go; when I felt like giving up—I SAW THE LORD. It reveals to me that God doesn’t need your life to be going right to come in to your situation and radically move in a way where His glory may be revealed. It’s in the year of a tragedy that God is seen. Is there anybody in here that’s glad that God can be seen and can speak no matter what you’re going through?

          Is there anybody in here that can say I’m so glad that God doesn’t need everything to be perfect in my life—all I’ve got to do is get in the right posture; get in the right position in spite of my problem and God can speak to me and show Himself to me no matter what I’m going through. Is there anybody who knows that if God had to wait until everything in your life got right—you would have lost your mind, gone crazy, went postal, shot the dog, kicked the cat, or gone ballistic. In fact, the only reason you didn’t lose your mind is because in the midst of the situation—God showed you His glory!

          The second thing that happens when the glory of the Lord comes in is when you’re in a worship experience, the glory will help you declare the reality of your identity. Isaiah said, ‘When I got in God’s presence and saw God and saw Me—all I could say was ‘WOE.’ When I SAW what I SHOULD look like and I SAW WHAT I DO look like—I said WOE! I didn’t have time to look at my neighbor because when I SAW God and saw ME, all I could do was cry out—WOE! I looked at what He was and I looked at what I am not. I looked at His love and looked at my hatred. I looked at His compassion and I looked at my deceit. I looked at His righteousness and I looked at my wickedness. I looked at His holiness, and I looked at my wretchedness. All I could do was say WOE is me!

          And the third thing is when you are in the glory of God; it becomes your consecration for an invitation to Kingdom participation. Isaiah declares, ‘my lips are unclean.’ He says that the angel of the Lord goes down and takes a tong and gets burning coal because it’s hot and he touches his lips and says, ‘now your sins are purged.’ In other words, the angel comes and takes a coal from the altar (the altar is the place of sacrifice) and he places it on the lips of Isaiah in order to purify, cleanse, and purge the sin of Isaiah. I’m saying, there had to be a sacrifice of some sort for him to be purged of the sin that he confessed. Notice that purging doesn’t occur until after there’s been confession. Isaiah confessed and then God purged. What we must realize is that the altar is a place of sacrifice; coal is something that’s burning, which means that there is a burnt offering that has been consumed on the altar allowing his sin to be purged.

I’m saying what Isaiah admits to is a weakness in the area of his strength. The enemy tried to render him helpless in the area God wants to use him. He was a prophet, meaning that his gift and his anointing rested on his lips. He had the gift on his lips of being a skilled communicator, and man capable of exquisite poetic expression. He was anointed in his lips to speak truth to power. Yet, he says, ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’ The enemy tried to contaminate the very thing that God was going to use.

          See, the enemy knows how God wants to use you and where God wants to use you and what God wants to use in you. And the enemy will do everything in his power to make you weak in the area where God has given you strength. The enemy knows that God has some stuff in you that He wants to use for His glory; so the enemy tries to contaminate the area of your giftedness so that your gift is rendered helpless. But God will touch the very place that the devil tried to ruin. Isaiah’s lips were messed up; but the Lord touched him in the place that was needed. I submit to you this morning that God will touch the area that the enemy tries to mess up and will turn it around for His glory.

          As I begin to close, God will put some of His glory on your messed up humanity and make you an anointed vessel for His Kingdom. God’s got a way of taking areas of your life that seems to be ruined and turns them around to be used for His glory. That’s the reason why the enemy wants to keep you a mess—because if you ever get in the glory of God—God will touch you in the place where you are weak and make you strong, so you can be who you’re supposed to be.

          Lastly, engaging in worship is a profound experience that goes beyond singing songs; it is an intimate encounter with the divine. When believers gather and focus their hearts on God, they open themselves to the refreshing and renewing presence of the Holy Spirit. This act of worship is not merely a part of the service routine but a vital, life-giving moment where individuals can truly connect with God and be transformed by His presence. As believers worship, they should expect to be renewed and empowered, experiencing God's presence as tangibly as rain nourishes the earth. My brothers and sisters, we need to experience God through worship!